


Songs of the Mountains

by IndianSummer13



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Country Music, F/M, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, Lots of history, Midwest, Mutual Pining, Singer!Jug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26068678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndianSummer13/pseuds/IndianSummer13
Summary: She still harbours the dream - in secret of course. And really, she blames him for this whole obsession in the first place.In which aspiring country singer Betty Cooper is trying to make it in a world where onlyheexists.
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Veronica Lodge, Betty Cooper & Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 35
Kudos: 63





	Songs of the Mountains

**Baby is it spring or is it summer**

**The guitar sound or the beat of that drummer**

**You hear sometimes late at night**

_She can’t stop staring at the ring on her finger. It’s only a simple band; silver, not gold or platinum; no stones; no engagement ring above it. He wants to apologise for the plainness of it but she’s already shushed him twice (once with her lips on his mouth; once with her lips on his..._ well _… a_ different _part of him) so he’s content just to watch her trace the five milimetres of metal._

 _“We’re_ married, _Jug.”_

_“I know.” He’s smiling too - so hard that it almost hurts his face. “Mrs Jones.”_

_._

“Jughead, there’s someone who wants to talk to you,” Veronica tells him as he snaps the guitar case closed. She adds the second part low enough that only he can hear. “It’s Clifford Blossom.”

“On the phone?” he asks.

Veronica shakes her head. “In person. He’s in the dressing room.”

Jughead looks across at Fangs and Sweet Pea; at Toni sipping water from an Evian bottle.

“I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed,” his manager adds, reading his mind. 

The air is hot - busy with insects that swarm his face and only dart when they’re swatted away. Jughead makes his way down the stage steps and along the makeshift tunnel towards the town hall’s welcoming air conditioned rooms. 

The leather jacket he’s wearing, emblazoned with the band’s distinctive green serpent, is stuck to his back but he keeps it on and grabs a bottle of water from the table as he passes. Clifford Blossom, dressed impeccably in a brown suit that makes Jughead think of sludge, stands up to shake his hand when he enters.

“Mr Jones.”

“Mr Blossom.”

“Great show.” He gestures to the seats he’s just gotten up from. “Shall we sit?”

He sits because he’s damn near exhausted, not because some man in a suit has implied he should. 

“You had a large crowd today.”

“We did.”

Clifford Blossom brings his hand in a loose fist to his mouth and clears his throat. “ _You_ had a large crowd today.”

Jughead knows where this is going. It’s not the first time he’s been approached to work on solo material.

“You’re the one they’re all listening to. It’s your words they hear. _Your_ voice.”

“I don’t write the songs Mr Blossom.”

“A technicality.” He waves it away. “Thornhill Records could assist in that department.”

Jughead watches the way a bubble of spit forms at the left side of the older man’s mouth when he pronounces a t and and r together. The bubbles never quite pop, just disappear back inside of his mouth before the next one begins to form. 

He guesses this is the point where he’s supposed to tell him that music was never his big dream - not really. Maybe he should say that his real passion was always writing, reporting, finding a little story buried somewhere and turning it into something huge. 

“There _is_ no Serpents without you, Mr Jones. You might as well earn the rewards for your work.” 

He wonders, very briefly, what Betty would say. And then he decides it doesn’t matter anyway: Betty isn’t here. “I’ll think about it.” 

“You do that.”

* * *

_“Some of the guys at the shop are starting a band.”_

_The smell of vanilla cookies is hanging in the air and Jughead sniffs appreciatively over her shoulder, dropping a kiss to the nape of her neck. Her toes scrunch inside of the knitted socks she’s wearing: It always gives her butterflies when he does that._

_“They want me to play guitar.”_

_“Yeah?” Betty drops the final sprinkle onto the frosted star and Jughead reaches out to grab it. His wedding band glints under the fairy lights and she taps his knuckles gently. “You can’t eat these: they’re our Christmas gifts to Polly and the twins.”_

_“But they look delicious.”_

_She turns in his arms and plants a kiss at his lips. “You can lick the frosting off the spatula. I’m making dinner soon anyway.”_

_Jughead’s hands are cold as he slides them underneath her thick sweater and she squeals. He steals a second kiss and then a third and with that, Betty wraps her arms around his neck, forgetting for a while that she’d had to search the apartment for enough change to buy the powdered sugar._

.

Pop’s is busy. Pop’s is always busy, but the Country Jam festival begins in a few days, and already the city is filling up with musicians, budding musicians and those who are there to experience one of the country’s largest music parties. Betty has tickets too: only for two of the four days but still. It’s more than she got to experience last year. 

She drops menus off at table seven, delivers ketchup to table fifteen and then sets about making another pot of coffee. Archie grabs the piece of paper from the order rack and and calls,

“Order up,” then shoves a stray fry from the counter into his mouth.

Betty chides him gently without words and he just shrugs. “I’m starving.”

“There’s food at the apartment.”

“There _was_.”

“Really Arch?” she questions. “There was almost half a lasagne.” 

“Key word being _almost_ ,” he replies. “You know I get hungry after my workouts.”

She can’t be mad at him and strangely, she finds some sort of comfort in his eating at least 80% of their groceries. It reminds her that now she can afford to buy a little more food than she actually _needs._ It reminds her of when she couldn’t.

It reminds her of Jughead.

His band is playing the festival. She’d seen it on the website written in large white lettering: **The South Side Serpents.** There’s a countdown to the opening: three days, fourteen hours, twenty-seven minutes. 

Betty would have avoided the final day had it not been for the fact that Carrie Underwood is performing and she’s curious to see for herself what commercial success in country music looks like. That, and she just really likes her songs. The fact that Jughead will be there - on stage and dressed in one of the band’s trademark black leather jackets despite the summer heat - is something she’s told herself she just has to ignore.

She doesn’t have to watch him - can grab food from one of the trucks or ride the ferris wheel to get a view over the city while the band is playing. It’s been a long time since she has - watched him that is - and she’s not quite sure she’s ready to stoke up the atmosphere of that final dingy hall with its low ceilings and clouds of cigarette smoke. Even now, hearing a b7 chord open a song pulls inside her chest.

“ _Betty,_ ” she hears an insistent voice say, and she registers through the haze of smoke fogging the stage lights Archie’s voice. 

“Yeah?”

“Table eight need their order taking out.”

“Oh.”

The night passes as nights do. She earns plenty of tips, enough that she can put her ten dollars away for the recording studio time, and Pop slices off a hunk of peach pie, sitting it in front of her with a fork. 

“Thanks Pop,” she says, and he smiles. “You earned it. Busy night.”

Archie comes out of the swing door separating the bar from the kitchen and wipes the sweat off his brow. “You think I could get going? I’m meeting a girl at Cruisers.”

Betty resists the urge to roll her eyes and Pop chuckles. “Go ahead kid.”

After he’s gone, Pop rests against the counter while Betty wipes down the ketchup bottles. “Now what kind of a date is a night at Cruisers?”

“Archie’s Archie, Pop,” she says. “And that’s my favourite thing about him.”

“You headin’ out tonight too?”

“No,” Betty replies. “I started a book a couple nights ago and I can’t put it down.”

Her boss smiles kindly and takes the last ketchup bottle to wipe. “Get outta here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

.

_“What’s that? The hundredth time you’ve read that book?”_

_“Not the hundredth,” she retorts, setting down the worn copy of Little Women on the quilt. “How was work?”_

_“Oh you know,” Jughead says, setting his boots by the apartment door. “Grease, grime, spilled oil. Exhilarating.”_

_“You paint quite the picture.” He crosses to kiss her and she can smell gasoline. “I’ll heat up dinner while you’re in the shower. I made a casserole. Sweet Potato.”_

_“You spoil me.”_

_“Hurry up,” she says. “You must be starving.”_

_He flashes her a grin before closing the bathroom door. “Always.”_

* * *

“I heard Clifford Blossom was sniffing around today,” Sweet Pea says, taking a long drag from his beer. 

Jughead remains quiet, lighting the end of his cigarette and watching it glow orange. 

“Thornhill Records,” their drummer continues. “They’re a pretty big deal. That big-time studio in Memphis.”

“I told them I wasn’t interested,” Jughead finally says. It’s not strictly a lie: it’s what he’d implied by _I’ll think about it._

Sweet Pea raises his eyebrows. “You sure about that?”

“ _Pea,_ ” Toni warns.

“I’m just sayin’. If they were offering me a deal, I’d sure as hell think about it.”

Jughead takes a drag of his cigarette and leaves the room, closing the door behind him. He smokes quickly, not really enjoying it until he’s lit the second one and the back of his throat feels dry and hot. 

There are two kids playing on scooters out front, the lack of wheels against asphalt every now and again indicating little jumps and tricks. From the porch Jughead can see into the living room of the house over the road where the family that lives there is playing some sort of card game. 

.

_“21,” Betty says with a grin, her eyes twinkling. “Take them off.”_

_He follows her instruction, watching her while she smirks and wets her lips with the end of her tongue as he removes his boxers._

_“You know Mrs Jones, there_ are _quicker ways of getting me naked.”_

_She rises from her seat across the table, skirt still on but panties lying by the feet of his chair where she’d tossed them earlier. “Yeah?”_

_He reaches out a hand to touch the bare skin of her waist._

_“Like what?”_

_“Like asking me.”_

_She seats herself over his groin, her neck muffling his groan when she grazes against his dick. “And miss out on teasing you?”_

_He slides a hand over her chest, thumb brushing over her nipple. “All I’m saying,” he starts, words trailing off as she adjusts herself to sink down so he’s inside of her. “Is that we could’ve skipped straight to this part at least a half hour ago.”_

.

The door opens and Toni joins him to lean against the rail. “He’s right you know. If any of us had been offered a solo deal we’d be thinking about it.”

June air in Colorado is always hotter than Jughead expects it to be. Even on a cloudy day the heaviness of it can make his shirt stick to his back. 

“When I joined you guys, it was never for this,” he decides aloud. “It was supposed to be a bit of fun.”

“You saying you don’t find it fun any more?”

He turns the cigarette in his hand. It hasn’t been fun since the night he took off his wedding ring.

“Country Jam’s in a few days,” Toni says, not pressing him for an answer. “It’s going to be huge.”

A muscle in his jaw twitches involuntarily. “You should tell Sweet Pea not to drink any more. He can’t be hungover if we’re going to get off to an early start.” He throws the stub onto the porch and stamps it out with the toe of his boot. “I’m going to bed.”

“Bets on him leaving the Serpents by Christmas,” Jughead hears Fangs say before he’s reached the top of the stairs. 

Sweet Pea scoffs and Jughead hears the cap being twisted off another bottle. “Christmas? Jones’ll be gone by Labor Day weekend.”

* * *

Sometimes, on nights akin to this (and on cold, winter days too) Betty wishes her apartment had a bathtub. She wants to read her book in there, let the water grow cold enough that she has to turn on the hot tap with her toes until she’s toasty again. She wants to be surrounded by bubbles and feel her skin turn soft, then wrinkly, until the soles of her feet are white and she has to climb back out and wrap herself in a fluffy towel. 

_._

_“Just so you know, this apartment’s temporary.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Yes,” Jughead says. “That voice of yours will buy us a mansion some day.”_

_Betty feigns outrage. “So_ I’m _the breadwinner.”_

_“‘Swhy I married you Cooper.”_

_“Jones,” she corrects._

_Jughead grins. “_ Jones. _”_

 _“And here_ I _was, thinking I’d married the next man booker prize winner.”_

_He toys with the ribbon tied at her shoulder. “We’ll live in a house one day and we’ll watch from the porch while our kids play out front.”_

.

The shower grows cold after ten minutes. It _always_ grows cold after ten minutes. Betty steps out and towels off using the white bath sheet and sets it back on the stand to dry once she’s finished. She folds Archie’s into a neat oblong too, smoothing down the blue cotton so that it’s no longer lying haphazardly on its rung of the rail. 

The blue towel is new. The white towels are from _before_. 

The air conditioning unit rattles against the window frame but Betty finds it oddly comforting as she climbs under the sheet and settles against the three pillows she’s built up against the headboard.

Her bookmark is a photograph of Polly and the twins on the lawn of her parents’ house back in Boulder. Betty guesses Dag and Juni would’ve been around four years old, freckled from the sun with something sticky - strawberries she thinks - around their mouths. They’re eight now. More separate. Dag with his bike and Juni with her doll house.

Yes, she considers. Things were different four years ago. 

Late in the night (or, more accurately, early in the morning) she hears the apartment door close with a forced slam. It always sticks in the heat. There’s giggling and a muffled ‘oof’ and more giggling again before Archie’s bedroom door closes and Betty closes her eyes as the metal headboard scuffs the wall. 

**Funny how a melody sounds like a memory**

**Like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night**

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always greatly appreciated and are wonderful motivation.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr at @itsindiansummer13


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